The recent upswing in crop failures and spontaneous animal miscarriages appears to be the result of a deadly new plant disease, suggests a prominent researcher. According to ongoing research being conducted by Emeritus Professor Don Huber from Purdue University in Indiana, this disease is likely a result of genetically-modified (GM) crops and the pesticides and herbicides used to grow them. (more…)

That, according to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), is the average number of pesticides you are likely to be unknowingly gulping down in an attempt to be healthy by eating your five fruits and vegetables per day.

Of course, that’s if the produce you’re choosing happens to be on the EWG’s “Dirty Dozen” list of fruits and vegetables with the worst overall pesticide scores. (more…)

Regulators have known since 1980 that Roundup, the herbicide manufactured by U.S. company Monsanto, causes birth defects, and have done nothing to make the information public, according to a new report released June 7 (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/…).

The report, “Roundup and birth defects: Is the public being kept in the dark?” by Earth Open Source, found that regulators knew the chemical on which Roundup is based, glyphosate, can cause birth defects in laboratory animals. Earth Open Source is an organization that aims to use open source collaboration to engage people in programs that help nourish humanity, increase equity, support food security, and preserve the Earth. (more…)

Reports from European countries have found sub-fertile semen quality in 1 out of 5 young men ages 18 to 25. Research has also shown increasing rates of testicular cancer, un-descended testes in babies, and other hormone-related problems in men. Fertility and reproductive health is declining in men and has been over the last 50 years according to recent reports. The cause of this decline in health is multi-factorial, but research continues to expose agribusiness chemicals as potent hormone disruptors. The evidence of declining male reproductive health in connection with commonly used agricultural chemicals is found in a host of scientific research that has spanned decades. (more…)

The world’s top herbicide for decades has come under criticism after evidence surfaced suggesting that the chemical may be linked to infertility and miscarriage in animals, raising serious concerns about the possible effect on human consumers.

Glyphosate is the weed-killing ingredient introduced over 30 years ago by the multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation Monsanto under the brand name Roundup. Monsanto also produces “Roundup Ready” corn, soybeans and cotton genetically engineered to withstand large doses of Roundup that would be deadly to normal plants.

But Dr. Don Huber, professor emeritus at Purdue University and a well-known plant pathologist, wrote to both American and European officials earlier this year to express his concern over a newly-discovered, extremely small organism that has appeared in higher concentrations in conjunction with Roundup and Roundup Ready crops.

The “electron microscopic pathogen,” Huber wrote in a Jan 16 letter to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack, “appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals, and probably human beings,” noting that preliminary experiments have been able to reproduce the pathogen’s effect of causing miscarriages.

Huber urged the Secretary to delay deregulation of Roundup Ready crops, saying that “such approval could be a calamity.” “I believe the threat we are facing from this pathogen is unique and of a high risk status. In layman’s terms, it should be treated as an emergency,” he wrote.

Lyndsay Cole, media coordinator for the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, told LifeSiteNews.com Tuesday that Vilsack had received the letter and encouraged “submission of any data or studies in support of his concerns.”

Eleven days after the date of Huber’s letter, the USDA announced its decision to fully deregulate Roundup Ready Alfalfa.

Huber’s letter was only one of many criticisms aimed at Monsanto recently, with several environmentalist groups and others calling for a global ban on the product that has netted the company billions in sales despite its troubling environmental track record. More evidence of the danger of glyphosate emerged in 2010; a study by scientists in Argentina concluded that glyphosate caused mutations in embryonic frogs and chicks, according to Reuters.

Glyphosate-based herbicides have also been available under generic brand names after Monsanto’s patent expired in 2000.

Reuters reports that the Environmental Protection Agency is investigating the possible dangers of glyphosate and has set a deadline of 2015 for determining what action, if any, the government should take against it.

The biotechnology industry’s house of cards appears to be crumbling, as a new study out of the University of Sherbrooke, Canada, recently found Bt toxin, a component of certain genetically-modified (GM) crops, in human blood samples for the first time. Set to be published in the peer-reviewed journal Reproductive Toxicology the new study shreds the false notion that Bt is broken down by the digestive system, and instead shows that the toxin definitively persists in the bloodstream. (more…)

The pesticides and herbicides used to treat genetically-modified organisms (GMO) are showing up in significant amounts in rainwater, water wells, and even mothers’ breast milk, according to new research out of Brazil. Particularly among residents living near massive GMO monoculture operations, research reveals that 100 percent of women tested positive for at least one agrochemical in their breast milk, and cumulatively tested at agrochemical levels much higher than what is even permitted in cow’s milk. (more…)

Does it ever seem like the population is being “dumbed down”? Maybe that is literally happening — even before birth. And at least one of the culprits appears to be organophosphate pesticides that are widely used on food crops throughout the U.S.

The evidence for the intelligence robbing effect of these poisons isn’t some obscure study in lab animals, either. This is a major discovery involving human children in multiple studies. The results of three separate research papers have just been published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives and all document this alarming fact: pesticides could be robbing many humans of their maximum intelligence potential. (more…)

Decadent and delicious, much-loved strawberries have a dark side. The recently approved strawberry pesticide methyl iodide has been called “one of the most toxic chemicals on earth” by Dr. John Froines, UCLA Professor of Environmental Health and Chair of California’s independent scientific committee established to review the chemical.We have a window of opportunity right now to tell the EPA that methyl iodide has no place in the fields. (more…)